Rarely has a bad idea – in this case, remaking a 1950 tear-jerker with Queen Latifah in the Alec Guinness role – arrived on screen with its obvious badness so intact.
Everything that sounds wrong about this project is. Latifah plays a mousy department-store salesclerk who embarks on a European vacation when she is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Aside from the obvious miscalculation of making the vibrant Latifah play dowdy, this also offers the sight of her sharing the screen with French acting legend Gerard Depardieu as a famous chef. (Their banter is so awkward, I’m convinced neither of them can understand a thing the other is saying.)
